Archive for December, 2008

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Happy Easter?

December 31st, 2008

As many other personal finance blogs get serious about the successes and shortcomings of the year that has passed, I decided to close out 2008 on a humorous note, courtesy of The Consumerist.

According to the link above, it seems like CVS has hit a new level of ridiculous for putting out seasonal merchandise early. You can now get your Cadbury Mini-Eggs (and other Easter candy as well) at a CVS store a Consumerist reader found in Indiana. Keep in mind that Easter is not until April 12, a good three and a half months away.

It makes some of my personal observations seem down right reasonable:

  • Valentine’s Day stuff everywhere (WalMart, Walgreens, CVS) the day after Christmas.
  • Mardi Gras stuff at WalMart in Baton Rouge the day after Christmas (FYI, Mardi Gras is February 24 this year). They didn’t waste any time shifting from celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior to celebrating a holiday best known for public drunkenness and girls flashing their breasts, did they?
  • Spring outdoors items like planters, planting bulbs, outdoor furniture, and grills at Sams Club here in Houston just yesterday. Wasn’t everyone clearancing out this stuff like a month ago when summer temperatures ended around here?

So there you have it. Thanks to the kind reminders of the retail industry, I will go ahead now and wish you a Happy New Year, Happy Valentine’s Day, Happy Mardi Gras, and Happy Easter!

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Posted in Humor

$125 bonus for a Chase Checking account TIMES TWO

December 30th, 2008

I posted this as a comment on another blog, and then got to thinking I need to post this on my own blog. I written before about Chase banking bonuses (March 2008, November 2007, September 2007), and I have always been able to get these without issue. If you have never done these before, right now before year end is a great time to start.

If you head down to your local post office, you’ll find the New Movers Pack with the Change of Address form. The pack also includes several coupons, including one for a Chase Checking account bonus of $125. If you read the terms and conditions, you get the bonus for opening a new account and having direct deposit, and you are limited to one bonus per calendar year. As we are about to end one calendar year and start another, you can open one today or tomorrow (while we are in 2008) and one after New Year’s Day (in 2009). Fund both and start the direct deposits (many employers will allow split direct deposits, or you can fake the direct deposit using ING or another online account), and you should get a $125 bonus on each. If you plan to open multiple accounts, get multiple packets because the codes are one-time use.

To reduce the hassle factor even more, you can probably sign up for the account online and enter the coupon code in the application to avoid going into the branch. You just have to print off the signature card, sign and return via mail or fax.

A few notes about the deal:

  • The deal requires a $100 minimum opening deposit. If you open online, you can use a Visa or Mastercard to fund the account up to $2,000. Use a good reward credit card to earn some easy points!
  • If you don’t do an initial direct deposit on the account, you won’t get your bonus. If you don’t maintain the direct deposit, you’ll be charged a service fee unless you use your Chase Check Card five times during the statement period.
  • You have to keep the account open six months or they will deduct the bonus at closing. After six months, you can close it without penalty by going into a branch.
  • Be sure to keep a copy of the confirmation of the coupon being redeemed. If you open in a branch this should be a printed page they give you. If you open online, it should be a new window you can print. I’ve never had an issue with the bonus not being credited, but it is always best to cover your bases.
  • These bonuses are reported on a Form 1099-INT at tax time to the IRS, so you better report the income if you don’t want an audit. If you open one before year end and one after, you’ll get one form in January 2009 reporting the interest income from the first account and another in January 2010 reporting the interest income from the second account.

Have fun!!!

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Posted in Banking, Deals

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Follow-up: I doth say “Screw Sprint!”

December 29th, 2008

I posted a few weeks ago about my dilemma on what to do with my cell phone. I have been a Sprint customer for a little over two years and I’m no longer under contract, while my wife is an AT&T customer. I discussed the idea of switching to AT&T and doing a family share plan with the wife, although the biggest wrinkle would be trying to have a family share plan with phone numbers in two different area codes. The AT&T reps I talked to said it couldn’t be done, although my loyal reader Wes (yes, I have loyal readers, and this one isn’t even related to me) noted that it could be done through the business reps.

The initial decision I made was to try to hussle Sprint for various freebies to help bring the cost down to a level comparable with what we’d be paying if I switched to AT&T. I had read on SlickDeals and on Hustler $$$ Blog that many people had been able to successfully get Sprint to throw in free phones, free data plans, and other goodies to get them to renew a contract. Sadly my call to Sprint retentions didn’t go as well. They would offer me no freebies, and the best they could do on a new phone was a Motorola Q for $199.99 after rebate, which is $100.00 more than I could get it for on their website. So I politely declined and mulled it over during the Christmas break.

Well, in comes my brother-in-law JoeMoney to make the decision for me. He found some deal where he could get iPhones without a contract for about $150. He bought several to resell, and generously offered to sell me one at his cost. This sealed the deal for me – I decided to switch to AT&T, and here’s why:

  1. I was actually offended that Sprint wouldn’t do more to keep me as a customer. No freebies, no phone, nothing. If your service sucks as badly as Sprint’s does, you need to show at least a little bit of love at renewal time.  Since I couldn’t get any concessions from Sprint, my cost with separate accounts for me and my wife would have been about $20 more per month than an AT&T family share.
  2. The iPhone is just a really cool device, and I’ve been wanting to replace my iPod shuffle (it’s one of the old 512MB ones that looks like a USB thumb drive). This will be a far cry from my Treo 700p, which has to be one of the crappiest phones ever made.
  3. Because I’m getting the phone without a contract, there is no requirement to sign up for the AT&T data plan to use the phone. My brother-in-law is unlocking the phone for me so I can just use WiFi and save the $20 or so a month.
  4. Since I’m not buying the phone under contract, I can purchase another phone at a discount from AT&T. I bought an LG Shine for free after rebate, which appears to be going for around $150-$175 on eBay. That along with selling my old Treo should come close to covering my cost for the iPhone.
  5. I realized almost everyone else in my family and my wife’s family is on AT&T, so a lot of the minutes I was burning calling them will now be free mobile to mobile minutes. That makes the shared pool of minutes go a lot farther.
  6. I decided I don’t really want to port my Houston number. From my days as a consultant a lot of people had my number, and since I’m now working in a corporate accounting department I don’t really need or want those people to be able to contact me. My cell phone is now purely for my convenience and no one else’s, especially since I’m no longer reimbursed for any of the bill. Plus my new number will be a Baton Rouge number, which will be great since a lot of the people who call me are calling from Baton Rouge anyway. They can call me from a landline without long distance charges.

So there you have it. As soon as I receive the package with the new phone and SIM card, I will no longer be a Sprint customer. A better phone, better service, and a lower cost. Oh happy day!

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Posted in Savings, Tips

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Merry Christmas!

December 26th, 2008

Seeing as it is the day after Christmas and most of us are still in holiday mode, I just wanted to do a slightly less serious post to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. Yes, despite the impending collapse of our economic system, Christmas still came this year and we all have many things to be thankful for.

First off, all of my family can be thankful for the random drugstore goodies they got from me this Christmas. The byproduct of my hobby of pillaging CVS and Walgreens for free stuff produced a large stockpile of items this year, and President-elect Obama inspired me to spread the wealth around. So everyone in the family should have clean teeth (toothbrush and 2 tubes of toothpaste), be free of seasonal allergy symptoms (1 box of Wal-itin), and have a good ol’ Robo-trippin’ Christmas (2 bottles of Robitussin for everyone!).

On a more serious note, I do feel like I have a lot to be thankful for this year. Yes, my 401k is in the crapper (who’s isn’t?), but overall things are good. I now have a great job with a good company after being laid off from my last job this summer. I’m making more money, have less stress, and better benefits than I did in my old job. And as much as I still harbor ill feelings towards my last employer for laying me off, I am thankful they did it when they did before things degraded rapidly this fall. The company I went to work for came out and issued a hiring freeze about a month after I started, which tells me that my involuntary vacation would have likely been much longer if I got laid off at the beginning of the fall rather than the beginning of the summer.

I am thankful that the good financial habits my wife and I have allowed us to endure my period of joblessness without great hardship. She was able to keep working, which kept some money coming in, but it was the lack of debt (other than a reasonable mortgage) that kept this from being a disaster. We were able to keep the lights on (except when Ike came to town), no one went hungry, and the babies stayed clothed and diapered. We didn’t run up the credit cards to make ends meet. Other than being a little more careful with our spending, we got through this without any major changes to our lifestyle.

We made it through a major hurricane without any significant damage to our home or possessions. The hurricane actually saved me several thousand dollars in losses to my retirement accounts when it created a delay in the rollover of my old 401k, although hurricane cleanup and repairs have eaten away most of that.

My kids are both healthy and growing. Both are learning and exploring with their newfound walking and running skills. They both seem happy and love their momma and daddy.

So although we may get depressed thinking about the losses we’ve seen in our portfolios and retirement savings, the layoffs and rumors or layoffs that seem more numerous with every passing day, and the fear of what may be coming with the next presidential administration, there is still plenty to be thankful for this year.

Best wishes to you and your family this holiday season and in the year to come!

BillyOceansEleven

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Posted in About

Another reason I hate eBay as a buyer!

December 18th, 2008

I posted last week about my horrible eBay buying experiences of late. Well, at the time I wrote that I still had one outstanding transaction to complete. The seller had told me that he was out of town at the time I bought the item, but that the items would ship at the end of the week. Fine, no problem.

Fast forward to the end of the week after the purchase was made (purchase was made on a Monday, so about two weeks later): still no item. The next Monday comes: still no item. So on Monday evening I email the seller asking about the status and noting I am going out of town at the end of the week and need to have it come in ASAP. No response. Follow-up email on Tuesday asking for status and stating I will open a PayPal dispute if I don’t get an update by the next morning. Still nothing, so I file a PayPal dispute this morning. This finally solicits a response:

Sorry, I have been out of town on a family emergency. I can ship this item immediately if the dispute is closed. Until then, paypal will not allow me to access the shipping info.

Seeing as I’m going out of town in less than two days and have been waiting on the items for over two weeks now, I respond back that I will need to have the items sent overnight because I am going out of town, otherwise there will be no one here to accept the shipment. So either overnight them or refund the payment. Easy enough. Crap happens. Well, that gets this response:

I can overnight them, but am not paying the additional shipping charge. I can ship them to another address if it’s paypal confirmed. I am sorry for the delay, but I’ve been out on a family emergency, like I stated in my previous email. I will upgrade your shipping to priority (2-3 days) as an apology, but if I send it overnight, I’ll be loosing money on this transaction and they are now selling on ebay for well over $325 a piece. How would you like to proceed with this?

Um, yeah, did you not just read that I will not be here in 2-3 days? And who has multiple confirmed addresses, anyway? Sorry, but your family emergency shouldn’t cost me more money and I’m certainly not going to pay extra to get something that should have been sent out over a week ago anyway. So I reply again either overnight or refund, which solicits this:

By refunding your item, I’m out a significant amount of money.

Paypal Fee: $19.15

Ebay Listing Fee: $15.20

Ebay Final Value Fee: $32.75

Total: $67.10


Is it not possible to send it elsewhere?

No, moron! The fees you incur aren’t my problem. The problem was of your creation, not mine. I want it sent to my home address. I don’t want to have to track it down while on the road. I just want my money back. So after another email asking I take delivery at a different address and another request for either an overnight or a refund, I get this gem:

Well, I really do not intend to be rude, however I am not going to refund your payment. I will just ship the consoles to the address below and purchase delivery confirmation. If I scan the delivery confirmation receipt to send to paypal, my money will be refunded. Since ebay has no minimum shipping time requirement and I had a family member who was extremely ill, there is no possible retribution other then your negative feedback. I would thoroughly  appreciate us just working out something so that both of us are happy so that we do not have to put ourselves in that predicament. Again, I apologize for being rude, but I do not want incur the nearly $70 extra that refunding your money would cost me.

The hell you will! eBay may not have a shipping time requirement, but your seller protection rules on PayPal dictate 7 days from payment date. It also requires that you get a signature confirmation on items over $250 to be covered, and if no one is here there is no one to sign, meaning you won’t get the signature confirmation. Bluff called! Again, either ship overnight or give me a refund. It isn’t that complicated! Well, it gets more complicated:

I’m at my place in NYC. The Post office is already closed. I can ship it to your hotel tomorrow, or we can not, and I’ll just keep the dispute until paypal refunds it, which will take around 2 weeks. I can EASILY get $350 a piece for these on ebay right now, but that will cost me a little. You need two wii’s and I have 2. It will only cost us each more if we don’t go through with this transaction.

Oh, hell no! By this time you should have figured out you aren’t dealing with a newbie, so you really shouldn’t have done that. In my last attempt to save him from himself, I noted that I can simply dispute the charge with my credit card company and have the charge removed from my account immediately. In the process, he will be dinged for the service fee PayPal charges sellers on chargebacks, which is $10. Plus the negative feedback I will give to add a little insult to injury. Not to mention that there is no way you will get $350 (amazing, three emails ago it was $325) now that eBay has pulled the plug on the Live.com cashback which allowed sellers to inflate their listing prices. When I checked this evening, there were listings at $299.99 with free shipping. Amazingly, this is the response:

You can play it that way if you wish. Please let me know the address to ship it to if you change your mind.

Well, true to my word I called Citi this evening a disputed the charge on the credit card.

What a freaking moron! This guy is so desperate to make this transaction go through, he tries to bully his will on a buyer, and then offers to do things that would disqualify him from the seller protection policy, and then refuses the refund only to be certainly hit with the chargeback fee on his account.

This guy is actually very lucky I am honest, because if I wasn’t after he pissed me off I would have given him an unconfirmed address to ship to and then filed a buyer protection claim with PayPal to get the payment back. The dispute would have been ruled in my favor since the seller didn’t send to the confirmed address or within 7 days of payment, and I would have ended up with two free Wii’s. Oh well, not worth my eternal soul to get a couple of free game consoles and really stick it to a douchebag.

Again, I am done with eBay as a buyer. I’m not sure if it is just a bunch of amateurs are getting into the game reselling stuff they bought with a Live.com cashback rebate, a general decline in the caliber of sellers on eBay, or just bad luck, but eBay buying just isn’t worth the hassle anymore.

1 comment »

Posted in Customer Service, Off Topic

Get 10% back on Walgreens products using the Prescription Savings Club

December 15th, 2008

Anyone who knows me knows I’ve spent a lot of time in Walgreens recently. When they pay you to take stuff, it is hard for my obsessive-compulsive self to say no. Anyway, just when you thought you couldn’t milk Walgreens for anything more, the fine folks at SlickDeals have discovered yet another way to be paid for shopping at Walgreens: the Prescription Savings Club!

So here’s the deal: Walgreens promotes this Prescription Savings Club to people with no or lacking prescription drug benefits. An annual membership for an individual is $20, and it entitles you to have many prescriptions (mostly generics) filled at a discounted rate. The reason why we care is the benefit that isn’t heavily promoted: you earn a 10% rebate on any purchases of Walgreens brand products using the card.

As if this wasn’t good enough, several loopholes have been found in the program. The main ones are:

  1. You can enter past purchases to your account to earn more rebates through their website. Although their official policy is that you can’t, their system does allow this.
  2. If you enter the transaction online, the 10% rebate is computed on the amount before any Walgreens coupons. Example: two weeks ago Walgreens had the 10ct. Wal-itin tablets for $6.99 less a $6.00 in-ad coupon, which made them $0.99 a box. If you enter the receipt online on your account, the rebate earned will be 10% of the $6.99 price, or $0.70.

As you can probably tell, anyone who does Walgreens deals often can rack up rebates pretty quickly. On my account, I’ve already earned about $135 in rebates, which I can use to buy almost anything at Walgreens. So I’ve now been paid even more to take all of those Walgreens diapers from the deal a few months ago!

Here is a FAQ list I prepared for the thread on Slickdeals, which should clarify how this works a bit more:

What is the Walgreens Prescription Savings Club (PSC)?
The Walgreens Presciription Savings Club (PSC) is Walgreens’ discount pharmacy program aimed at customers without other pharmacy insurance. It offers discounted prices on prescriptions, particularly generics. It also offers a 10% rebate on all Walgreens brand purchases when you use swipe the card at checkout or add your receipt to the card online.

What does it cost to join?
Membership in the program is $20 per year. If you are a frequent Walgreens shopper, you’ll probably make that back in rebates very quickly.

How do I join?
You can join at your local Walgreens pharmacy, or enroll online here. You will receive a temporary card immediately and a permanent card in about 2 weeks via mail.

Do I have to have prescriptions filled with Walgreens to enroll in the program?
No. Anyone can enroll in the program and collect the rebates. There is no requirement to have prescriptions filled.

How do I link my card to my Walgreens.com account?
Once you’ve signed up and received your card in the mail go here and link your PSC account with your WAG online account. 

Can I add receipts to my card using the temporary card?
No. You cannot add receipts to a temporary card. You can only add receipts to the number from your permanent card.

What products earn rebates with my PSC card?
All Walgreens or W brand products earn a 10% rebate.

Can I add receipts to my card from prior to joining?
YES! Although Walgreens official policy is that the rebate is effective after you join, their system allows you to add receipts prior to your joining date to earn the rebate.

Do Walgreens gift cards qualify for the 10% rebate?
Yes. Another area where official policy and what their system actually allows differ.

On what price is the rebate based on, pre-coupon or post-coupon price?
In practice, this depends on whether you swipe the PSC card at checkout or add the receipt to your account later. If you swipe at checkout, the rebate credited to your account is based on the post-coupon amount. If you add the receipt to your account online later, the rebate is credited on the pre-coupon amount. Another oddity is that if you enter receipts online it also seems to ignore line items to void a scanned item, meaning it will still credit the rebate even though you didn’t purchase the product.

Example: You purchase a $6.99 Wal-itin using a store coupon deducting $6.00. If you swipe at time of purchase, you will be credited $0.10 ($0.99 x 10%). If you add the receipt to your account online later, you will be credited $0.70 ($6.99 x 10%).

How is the rebate paid?
The rebate amount is added to your PSC card, which acts like a gift card.

If I don’t use up the balance on the PSC card on my next transaction, do I lose that rebate?
No. The PSC card acts similar to a gift card. Any unused balance is available to use on future transactions.

How do I redeem the rebate on my card?
Simply swipe the PSC card at the time of payment, like you would a traditional Walgreens gift card.

What can the PSC rebate be used for?
The Walgreens website says, “All items are eligible for purchase with the Rewards excluding liquor, tobacco, gift cards, dairy and prescription copays.” Some users have reported being able to redeem the card for dairy, however.

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Posted in Walgreens

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Why I hate eBay as a buyer (rant alert!)

December 4th, 2008

There are many things in this world that you should just know beforehand that they will be trouble. A trip to the DMV or returning an item to a store without a receipt would both be examples many would cite. But I have my own: buying anything off of eBay. It seems like every time I do it, something isn’t quite right and I swear to myself I will never do it again, but I keep getting sucked in by some deal like the Live.com cashback.

Anyway, here is my latest experience: I bought two Wii consoles yesterday afternoon using Buy It Now and paid immediately through PayPal. I bought these using Live.com search offering 25% cashback, and was going to turn around and resell the items on eBay later on (the cashback makes the deal workable, leaving a profit of about $50 per console based on my calculations). Because of other issues I’ve had (more on that later), I sent the seller a nice note requesting that they pack the items as not to damage the product box. A few hours later, I get a response saying that they will happily send the item in a gift box, however they only have one console to ship and asking if I wanted to complete the transaction for one. Something didn’t really smell right, so I searched the sellers other items and found she had an active listing for another Wii console as an auction (which is still active as I type this). Obviously she saw how quickly the original listing ended and decided she could get more for the Wii by relisting it. Wii consoles are pretty big, so it is not like an iPod shuffle where you could easily miscount the number you have on hand. I emailed her back citing the active auction listing and asking her to ship my two consoles and she continued to insist she only had one to ship, so after some messaging back and forth I eventually gave up and just asked for a refund of my money, which about 12 hours later I’m still waiting on. She is totally getting negative feedback and I’m reporting it to eBay.

Here is a sampling of the other fun transactions I have had on eBay over the last year:

  • Bought another Wii console earlier in the year to resell. Instead of packing it properly, the seller simply wrapped the original box in craft paper and shipped it unprotected. The box arrived and was dented to hell. The console was okay, but it sure make it difficult to sell an item as new when the box has tears and is smashed in on one side. And this was after the seller charged $40 for shipping! I ended up trading out boxes with my Wii console I kept (bought from another eBay seller, but they thankfully packed it properly) and switching out the serial number sticker to resell it.
  • Bought a large quantity of like items from a seller to give as Christmas gifts. The seller decided to send them as three separate packages, one of which was simply three of the items taped together with a shipping label affixed directly to the product box. They were shipped Parcel Post (why does anyone use Parcel Post, it is slow and expensive?), so the last of the packages took two weeks to arrive. Once we had them all, we found one of the items was broken and another was missing the AC adapter. Thankfully the seller sent a replacement for the broken one and a replacement AC adapter, and we were planning to keep a few of the items anyway so we don’t have to try and pass any of the ones covered in packing tape as gifts. But it ultimately took over a month and a lot of hassle to complete the transaction.
  • Bought a plush fish for my daughter to replace one I ruined (who knew you couldn’t dry a plush animal in the dryer? Apparently not me.). The item arrived exactly as described, but shipping took forever! After a week and a half I finally emailed the seller who said she forgot it in the back of her car and shipped it out that day. It ultimately took two weeks to get the item.
  • Bought an FM transmitter for my iPod shuffle. Cheap piece of Chinese crap that didn’t work. Seller would only refund the item price (not including shipping) and I would have to pay to ship it back, meaning it would cost me more money to return it than I would be refunded. Ultimately just filed a credit card dispute and got my money back through the credit card company.

I don’t get why in the hell every eBay sale has to be a problem. I sell on eBay as well (hate the fees and the policies, but it is hard to find another place to consistently find buyers online), and as far as I see selling is pretty simple. List your item using an accurate description, follow through on completed transactions, pack the item so it won’t be damaged in shipping, and send it off relatively quickly (2-3 business days, tops). If there is an issue, deal with it such that it is fair for both parties. If you cover those points, you shouldn’t have many dissatisfied buyers, and if you do it probably is something out of your control. It isn’t that hard! I have sold about 1,000 items through Half.com and eBay over the last 5 years, and have a feedback score of over 500 with no negative feedback. It is too bad the sellers I have bought from don’t take the same care I do in my own sales.

I’ve said it before, but this time I think I mean it. No more eBay buying. It just isn’t worth the hassle anymore.

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Posted in Customer Service

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